In Search of Avery Willard – (USA, 2012)

WINNER: Shout Award, ‘Best Short Film’ – 2012 Sidewalk Film Festival ‘BEST OF THE YEAR’ SELECTION: Senses of Cinema FIlm Journal (2012 World Poll), Attitude Magazine (Best of BFI London LGFF 2012)

Produced concurrently and in partnership with Ira Sachs’ acclaimed feature film KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (2012, Music Box Films) with support from the New York Public Library, IN SEARCH OF AVERY WILLARD is an illuminating portrait of one of queer art’s most fascinating and elusive innovators.

Broadway photographer, physique artist, gay activist, experimental filmmaker, drag historian, leatherman, pornographer: New York City artist Avery Willard produced a lifetime of historically significant work that has remained widely unseen for decades. Through rare interviews with collaborators, friends and preeminent cinema historians, filmmaker Cary Kehayan traces Willard’s provocative career from the 1940s through the 1990s. Featuring newly restored, never-before-seen archival films and photographs, this revealing documentary tells the story of a lost trailblazer of the queer art movement – a man who was as ambitious as he was self-sabotaging.

Executive produced by Ira Sachs (Forty Shades of Blue, Love Is Strange) and Lucas Joaquin (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Keep the Lights On) and featuring an original score by Daniel Quinn (Cosmonaut), IN SEARCH OF AVERY WILLARD has screened at over 25 U.S. and international film festivals and was released by Music Box Films as part of the Keep the Lights On DVD and Blu-ray editions.

Homoteens – (USA, 1993)

Five young gays and lesbians in New York City have produced their own vivid autobiographical portraits with the help of videomaker Joan Jubela. Each portrait is unique, and each of these homoteens has a style all their own. Monique talks about her girlfriends and about being a Latina dyke in New York City. Peter, meanwhile, tapes the story of his long-distance relationship with his closeted Canadian athlete boyfriend, Richard. An anonymous 15-year old talks about being hassled in school and shows off his scrapbooks of gay and African-American history. 17-year old community organizer Henry M. Diaz offers a look at the organization that helped him come out, Youth Force. And Nicky, a 19-year old Afro Carribbean-American lesbian, tells us about her girlfriend, growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and being institutionalized for being a lesbian.

http://vimeo.com/24661223 – click to go to video

The Kenneth Williams Story – (UK, 2002)

The Kenneth Williams Story – A Reputations Special

Finicky, hygiene-obsessed comic actor Kenneth Williams, living in a flat block with mutually adoring mother Louie, looks back on his life. At loggerheads with his homophobic father over his career Kenny fulfils his dream of becoming a classical actor but is spun off into comedy,allowing full rein to his crowd-pleasing array of funny voices.

A compulsive, often selfish performer off-screen, he becomes a national treasure following the radio show ‘Round the Horne’ and the successful series of film farces ‘Carry On’… though he is disdainful of the latter,given that he once trod the boards with Orson Welles. Privately he is a tormented closet gay, sickened by his sexuality, unlike his friend, promiscuous playwright Joe Orton, and desperately asks his ‘Carry On’ co-star Joan Sims for a show marriage, which she refuses. Ultimately  Louie’s death, his own hypochondria, a down turn in work and a sense of his own isolation will result in a fatal encounter with a bottle of tablets in 1988.

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Borderline – (UK, 1930)

Borderline – 1930 – Paul Robeson

What’s the gayest British silent? A few coded homosexuals can be found in Alfred Hitchcock’s early work (check out the swishy dressmaker in 1925’s The Pleasure Garden), while Ivor Novello’s films play up the flamboyant star’s androgyny, playing very odd, allegedly heterosexual men in The Lodger (1926) and The Man without Desire (1923).

But gayest of all remains Borderline, a hotbed of sexual passions set around an interracial love triangle. The main trio may be straight, but the camera’s love of Paul Robeson’s torso – the film was directed and produced by gay men – hints at an even more taboo love story. The male pianist’s longing gazes at a photo of Robeson tell their own tale. It was directed by Kenneth Macpherson, the editor of the landmark film journal Close Up (1927-33) – sadly, following the poor critical reviews for Borderline, he did not direct again. (text BFI)

Storyline

Adah, a black woman, has an affair with Thorne, a white man, much to the dismay of some of the prejudiced townsfolk and Thorne’s wife, Astrid. Adah attempts a reconciliation with her man, Pete, but eventually leaves him and the town. Meanwhile, Astrid goes mad and cuts Thorne’s face and arm with a knife, but then mysteriously dies. Thorne is tried but acquitted. Because of the events, the mayor sends Pete a letter asking him to leave town for the good of all concerned. Written by Arthur Hausner genart@volcano.net

The Incredibly Strange Filmshow – John Waters – (UK, 1988)

The Incredibly Strange Film Show: John Waters, a C4 documentary.

The Incredibly Strange Film Show was a series of documentaries focusing on the world of psychotronic movies, hosted by Jonathan ‘deliciouth wing of cheethe’ Ross. Episodes focus on the lives of such diverse filmakers as Hershell Gordon Lewis, Saim Raimi, Doris Wishman, Ed Wood Jr, and Tsui Hark.

John Waters – un Mickey Mouse al cinemaului sau ’’It’s too good to be bad” de Claudia COJOCARIU

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